When the Load Seems too Heavy
"28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)
by Alexandra Copeland
Have you ever been in a place in life where you felt as though you were losing everything that was important to you? It’s a horrible feeling isn’t it? The seams are unraveling so quickly that you can’t catch up. You feel as though you’re losing control because you don’t know how to stop things from getting worse. The very ground beneath you seems as though it’s slipping away. Some people think that Christians should never feel hopeless or discouraged to this degree, but it happens. Right this very moment there are Christians who are sinking in a mountain of debt, about to lose their homes, with broken marriages and families; and the very person—the one friend that they thought would be in their corner is nowhere to be found. It’s a brokenness that defies everything they’ve been taught. And on top of the mountain of ‘feel bad’ that this person is already experiencing, problems just keep popping up all over the place, one right after the other.
I’ve endured a couple of gut-wrenching seasons of despair like this, and I can tell you that there was no fun to be had in them. When I was younger and wallowed in my sobs and teary-eyed whining about some lost love or troublesome high-school drama, my grandmother would say to me, “the Lord won’t put more on you than you can bear, baby.” I was comforted by her intention, because I knew that she loved me, but this saying of hers scared me senseless. It implied that God would lay on the tribulation pretty thick, and stop just short of being TOO much. I scratched my head over this piece of encouragement that she so often used, and never understood how she could think it would make anyone feel any better. I thought to myself, “I personally don’t know how much more I can bear, but I hope the Lord doesn’t test it out any further.”
When I got older and endured difficult times, people would say things like, “The Lord is testing you to see what you’re made of.” I thought, “The Lord knows everything; He knows me through and through. He already knows what I’m made of, so why would He need to test me.” At one point in my life, I was in so much turmoil and so confused by what people told me the Lord would or wouldn’t do that I finally just said, “Ok Lord, this just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m suffering. I’m not good enough the way I am, and I’ll never be good enough to deserve Your blessings. I’m pretty messed up right now, so just help me because You love me, not because of anything that I am or can do.”
Boy am I glad that God looked beyond my faults and saw my need. He heard my cry and helped me. And not only did He help me, but He taught me lessons that only He could teach. It is no secret that the Christian has an enemy and he is our Heavenly Father’s archenemy, the devil. 1 Peter 5:8 (NLT) tells us, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” God admonishes us to stay alert and to be vigilant. In other words, we are to behave as though we know that we have an enemy. God tells us this not so that we’ll be scared out of our wits. He’s providing us with information so that we can always be prepared with His armor.
When we are overwhelmed with problems and despair, it is very easy to see ourselves as weak and defenseless, but the Father didn’t create us to be weak and defenseless; quite the contrary. In Romans 8:37, God tells us that we are MORE than conquerors through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. “How can this be?” you might think, when you are unable to pay your bills, have lost your job, and you don’t have anyone you can call on to help you out. How can you be more than a conqueror when you are in the worse shape of your life?
The answer to this question is quite simple really. We are more than conquerors because God says we are. If God says it, then it must be so. There’s no guesswork involved—no maybe’s or if’s. It’s a done deal. So our responsibility and task as Christians is to trust and believe what God says, and put on His Word—His armor—in our hearts and minds. This was the greatest lesson that I had ever learned as a Christian—to stop allowing my condition to define me, to walk in faith, and to study and know God’s Word for myself. I gave all my worries to God, every bit of them. I didn’t have a choice, because like most of us, the load of all that I faced was too much to carry on my own.
The enemy loves to keep those darts coming when we’re down, and it can feel very much like it isn’t going to get any better, but as long as we’re in Christ it has to. That’s the wonderful thing about walking in the Father’s love; He will never forsake us. Throughout the Old Testament, we can see countless records of when God’s chosen ones behaved abominably. He warned them time and time again to turn from their wrong doing and cling to Him, their Sovereign God, but they would not do it. They began to worship other Gods, but even then God forgave them. He didn’t stop loving and helping them.
There are some who believe that God tears you down in order to build you up. They believe, as Job’s miserable friends did, that God causes bad things to happen to the Christian so that she or he can be made humble in His sight. Our Father is a loving God. He doesn’t push or shove, because love doesn’t push or shove. In Revelation 3:20(NIV) He said, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” He doesn’t burst down the door, but lovingly stands at the door of our hearts and waits for us to let Him in. This is how gentle and loving God is. He doesn’t want bad things to happen to you. He’s taken extraordinary measures, giving us His only begotten son to die, all so that we would not have suffer and endure the ultimate consequences of our sins. He did all of this to spare us from pain, not inflict it upon us.
The enemy sends trouble our way to buffet us and keep us from honoring, serving, and walking with God; but we must not allow this to happen. 1 Thessalonians 5:4-11The Message (MSG) encourages us not to sink into the abyss and get knocked off the path by the enemy’s trick, but to lift our eyes to the Lord, because he’s forever our help. Take a look:
"4 But friends, you’re not in the dark, so how could you be taken off guard by any of this? You’re sons of Light, daughters of Day. We live under wide open skies and know where we stand. So let’s not sleepwalk through life like those others. Let’s keep our eyes open and be smart. People sleep at night and get drunk at night. But not us! Since we’re creatures of Day, let’s act like it. Walk out into the daylight sober, dressed up in faith, love, and the hope of salvation.
God didn’t set us up for an angry rejection but for salvation by our Master, Jesus Christ. He died for us, a death that triggered life. Whether we’re awake with the living or asleep with the dead, we’re alive with him! So speak encouraging words to one another. Build up hope so you’ll all be together in this, no one left out, no one left behind. I know you’re already doing this; just keep on doing it."
Don’t let problems cause you to
sleepwalk through your life. Wake up to Christ! Pay
attention to what he is doing. We need to see every
situation in life as one that helps to remind us that we are
not children of the dark, but children of the light! This is
why we need to stand guard and stay dressed up in faith and
love, because that is our covering. So stay anchored in
Christ and trust him with your whole heart. Know that God’s
armor is greater than anything in the earth. He loves us,
and nothing is too heavy for Him!■
Scripture quotations marked
(NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living
Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189.
All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
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